Dungeon Defenders

Thanks for all of your feedback on the DDII pillars in my last blog post! It’s exciting to see how invested our players are in the development process. Today I’d like to share how we plan to honor that investment by incorporating the suggestions and feedback we receive from you.

First, though, I want to define what suggestions and feedback mean to us, and the distinction between the two:

Player feedback from the first game is a vital part of our development process for DDII. As level designers, it's shown us that we need to develop certain guidelines and philosophies when creating maps for the sequel. Today I'd like to share a few of those philosophies with you.

Making Levels More Accessible

In some DDI levels, objectives were inaccessible from certain parts of the map, even if you were right beside them like in the image below. There’s nothing more frustrating than watching your core explode because the map forced you to run a lap to reach it. On modes like survival, this could mean hours lost.

A few days ago, Laura reintroduced you to everyone’s favorite over-enthusiast, the Squire! What you don’t know is that he has a completely new biography just waiting to be seen. While I can’t share the whole thing with you just yet, I thought this would be a good opportunity to shed some light on how we create a hero biography.

Why redo the bios at all? For starters, I wrote all of the previous biographies with the tournament in mind, centering each hero’s motivation on that key point. As we moved away from the MOBA, inconsistencies sprang up left and right, and the fix wasn’t as simple as omitting a few details.

Defenders of Etheria, the moment you’ve waited for is finally here. At long last, we have the honor and privilege of (re)introducing you to: The Squire!

The Squire is a little different than you remember. Rest assured, though, all of the things that make him the Greatest (and most enthusiastic) Hero of Etheria are completely intact. He’s still a durable, no-nonsense tank, a helmet-clad wrecking ball, and a blur of steel and pain. Time to explore what the new and improved Squire is all about!

Big, strong, and with an indiscriminate hatred for all things heroic, you won’t catch this Ogre meandering through the fields of Etheria with his trusty donkey companion. He’s not on a quest to save the princess. He’s on a quest to destroy your defenses, pummel your friends, and wreck your day. And it’s a quest he’ll complete if you don’t have a few friends to back you up.

In the original Dungeon Defenders, you had to rally your allies around the appearance of the very first Ogre. He was big, he was mean, and he didn’t care that you’d just spent all your mana upgrading that barricade. If you didn’t have friends to help you, it was toast, and so were you.

But after time you could outgear him, bulk up your defenses, and treat him like a superpowered Orc. In Dungeon Defenders II, we want to change that. The moment an Ogre enters the battlefield, you’ll know you have to step up your game at all levels of play.

In Dungeon Defenders II, we’re exploring new ways to create a fun and engaging cooperative experience. Instead of focusing your attention on one or two main objectives, you’ll now have the option of protecting sub-objectives that can drastically alter the flow of the game.

Good Co-op Play Comes From Variety

In DDI, many players told us that the best strategies involved clustering defenses around crystal cores.

As 2013 comes to an end, we’re already feeling the icy chill of winter here at Trendy. I had to take out my winter coat to endure the frigid 65 degree weather. And that’s not even counting the cow blanket that permanently warms my office chair!

We’re going to take a detailed look at this past year in review in January, but for now here’s a brief summary:

In addition to sweeping gameplay changes from the MOBA, Dungeon Defenders II has also changed artistically in the past year. Our focus on a mobile release has diminished, and this has given us the opportunity to explore a greatly increased technical budget. Through this change we’ve experienced fun, artistic freedoms that just weren’t possible before.

The team has been cranking away on one of our most recent areas, currently referred to as “The Ruins.” We’re clever like that. Normally when creating a new map, the game designers supply the art team with a written description of the area, then the magic-wielding concept artists turn words into a fully realized image! If this were 1692 Salem, they’d probably have to go into hiding. Fortunately, progressive as our modern society is, they are generally encouraged in their conjuring arts.

In the case of The Ruins, circumstances worked out a little differently. The area had already made its way through level design before enough concept paintings were completed to inform what the map should really be.

A wave of kobolds just spawned. You killed their brothers and sisters, and now they want revenge.

They sprint toward your blockades like a ravenous pack of wolves. You catch one last look of terror in their eyes before an explosion rocks your world. When the dust clears, you look for your beloved defenses. They’re gone. Your beautiful blockade children are gone.

A new wave of kobolds appears. You have a choice: Stand and fight or rebuild your defenses. You start to rebuild. Slowly. Oh so slowly. You can’t do anything else. And then you hear it. A loud, persistent scream. It starts off faint. But it gets louder. Closer. The blockade is almost complete. The top of the wall is coming into existence when BOOM. You’re blown to smithereens, and the blockade disappears.

We don’t want you to ever make the choice between repairing and death again. Building defenses should add to the fun of combat, not inhibit it. With Dungeon Defenders II, we took a closer look at what was and wasn’t working, and how we could better achieve one of our pillars: Tower Defense, Action, and Role-Playing working together seamlessly.

Defense Placement

In the first game, defense placement was jarring. It left heroes vulnerable during combat, and it typically involved more pre-planning than strategizing on the fly.